Spying on Elliott

I almost had a heart attack as I drove up to get Elliott from daycare. I was laughing so hard at how cute he was in the mega stroller!

These are my sneaky photos as I drove by to park (I knew the minute he saw me he'd start crying).

Enjoy!

catching up

Ahhh, I have about 6 half-finished entries to post with photos of Elliott, my parents visiting, our new house, and more...but I am supposed to be working from home today. I'll post tonight after I get my work done (I am aligning and editing ITS and 28S gene regions from some Cortinarius mushrooms...if you were curious).

For now, here are photos of Elliott at work last week and the week before :)

...and this is the box where he takes naps!

back to work!

I am back to work...sort of.

I'm not going back to work for any specific number of hours, but I did go into the lab today - with Elliott - to work on revisions of our current manuscript. We ended up being gone for over 10 hours, 8 hours in the lab and the other 2 1/2 commuting by bus. It was Elliott's first of many bus rides!

Here is a cute video of Elliott in the morning. He is always very happy and active in the morning.

culture update

Culture update:

(I could NOT get the picture straight)
2 bags lost due to mold!
How?! I autoclaved them! Turns out mold grew only on the larger bags, so they must not have sterilized all the way through. I will not fill the bags as full next time.

on a positive note:

Other bags looking great.
See the mycelium growing thick and healthy?

culturing :)

I've been culturing!

I got the spring buzz a few weeks ago and started growing out some of my cultures that had been in storage for 2 1/2 years....
It was great because it coincided with the UW Farm starting a "fungi on the farm" committee, which I joined, of course.
*I grew these on a medium of oatmeal agar and Bacto agar (an antibacterial).
Here are a few photos:
Pleurotus pulmonarus, the Phoenix Oyster

Hericium erinaceus, the Lion's Mane

and Pleurotus ostreatus, the Oyster, or Tree Oyster

Once the cultures were healthy and strong, I mixed sawdust and spent beer grains about 50/50 and added water.

I sterilized this mixture in autoclavable bags, and allowed to cool. This took longer than expected.

Then, I set in small chunks of the mycelium, cut directly from their dish and zip-tied the bags closed.

I had a helper :)

Now, we wait.

my lab job

I work in a molecular lab, and this is what i do:


My boss, Dean Glawe-a plant pathologist and mycologist-picks out what powdery mildew samples he wants me to sequence. I am his lab technician.


Remove powdery mildew from plant leaves with a scalpel.


Break open the cells with a lysing matrix of garnet sand and ceramic balls.
Use Qiagen kit for DNA extraction.


PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) on extracted DNA with primers that amplify only (hopefully) the segment you are looking for.
Gel electrophoresis of PCR product to visually confirm correct amplification before investing more time in following procedures.





Exosap-IT procedure to clean the sample of non-target DNA.


Prepare samples of amplified DNA to be sent to Sequencing facility.


Three days later, we know the sequence of base pairs (A,T,C or G) and can compare our segment with others whether online or previously extracted in our lab.

Amazing!!! Science is amazing!!!

*

Seattle

I went on a road trip to Seattle!  

Adam was moving all his things to start life after college and I got to come, too! 

We stayed with Adam's sister's family and did all kinds of things together.  Andra and Robbie have two kids, George and Oliver.

Here's Adam at Pike's Market with Oliver.

Here's Andra with George.

We went to the Seattle Aquarium!  There was a cool sea anemone that looked like a mushroom :)

This was my favorite fish at the aquarium!

We ate 4 piroshki's and were still hungry.

We went to lunch at a delicious place in Capital Hill.

Seattle: from the Elliott Bay Book Store
.

Adam and I went to Mushroom Maynia at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington.

We saw these mushroom crafts:

and these beautiful colors from mushroom dyes.  We're going to try this soon.

Here is Oliver right before I left for the airport.

Here is me and Adam when i was nervous right before I met with Dr. Ammirati, the Mycologist!

Lunch at Agua Verde, close to where little Candice's new dorm will be!

I had a great vacation to Seattle.  I'm excited to move there this July :)  

Thanks Robbie and Andra for letting me stay with your family!